Three Sundays
Don't you worry 'bout the wicked
Don't you envy those who do wrong
And your innocence will be like the dawn
While the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun"
- Bloodless, by Andrew Bird
Sunday 1
I get up earlier than usual for a Sunday and dress in a favorite skirt: black and white pattern of leaves, a bit of a swish. I eat fruit and yogurt and drink my coffee quickly. Out the door I head in black flats, hailing a taxi at the corner and asking him to take me to Parque Elijido in Quito. There, I walk through the park in search of art. It is a little after 9:00, and the artists who appear on the weekends are just setting up. The sidewalks are still mostly bare.
I find a coffee shop and order a peach pastry and an Americano. I had meant to get to church by 10:00, yet in a snap decision decide that it's okay if I'm late. Likely, the art won't be all set up until that time, and this is my last chance. I sit by a window in the coffee shop and watch the sidewalk slowly fill. I read poetry from the Kindle app on my phone, eating the pastry and carefully sipping my coffee, steam rising and disappearing from the paper cup. At 10:00, I take my half-drunk coffee in hand and walk outside. I'm in no rush. I walk down the sidewalk and in my head are verses from poems and old hymns. My skirt swishes gently as I go. The morning is cool, yet warming slowly with the rising sun. I drink my coffee as I walk, strolling along past the art. Some interests me and some does not. With art before my eyes and verses in my head, I feel at peace. In that moment, I feel like poetry. I'm more than a girl in a poem on a Sunday morning, I am the poem. It's about me and in me and is me. I feel it so distinctly, I want to capture the feeling and put it on again and again, like a whiff of perfume on my wrists. I sigh, already wistful that I'd never known how much I needed a solo morning like this before. I walk past all the art twice, finally stopping beside a small paintinig of a blue door. I look at it and the others for a long time, finally glancing around for the artist. A woman steps forward shyly, middle-aged or older in loose, worn clothes. She shows me one other blue door painting of hers, and it is the one I decide to chose. The painting is simple, a little rough, but I like it and her so I buy it on the spot. I do not haggle her down in price. It will be a remembrance: of Ecuador, and even more, of a perfect morning when I felt like poetry. Beautiful, independent, decisive and strong, yet sweet as whole, with verses in my head and the rhythm of my footsteps and heartbeats keeping time. I was poetry, and now I have a painting to remind me.
Sunday 2
My brother and I have wrangled ten suitcases through the airport check-in at Quito, from the carousel in Houston and through security, and are on our way to pick them up in Austin, the final destination. Home, once more, after all this time. We step onto the escalator going down to the baggage claim, and I hear a whoop just as I spot a sign with my name on it. Four siblings and five friends with their kids have come to welcome me home. I cry all the way down the escalator.
We hug and cry and laugh. We collect the ten bags, which once again make it there all together, a small miracle. My parents arrive, and every bag stacks nicely into the back of their van. There is room to spare. They drive off with my exhausted travel companion, while the remaining five of us siblings pile into one car and go to breakfast.
We check-in at the busy restaurant, then walk across the street to a bookstore, wandering through the isles as the restaurant's app ticks down the time remaining until our wait is over. Everything is so bright, and so much. The options! The newness! The cups of Starbucks in people's hands and the ease of paying for everything with a card, nobody shaking their head to say no, cash only, then laughing when you try to pay for a small item with a $20 and they don't have - or don't want to give you - change. The convenience of it all revolving around me, unrealized.
At breakfast, there is hardly a quiet moment. This morning, my church is here; the choir: the unique lilt of my sibling's voices talking and laughing with free abandon. The benediction: the way in which one sister finds the perfect options for our vegan brother, as well as the enthusiasm for which we dig into our food. The blessing of never-ending coffee, much appreciated after a flight which didn't leave until 1:50am. Repentance: my heart earnestly saying, "I'm sorry I've been away, I've missed you all, I've missed this, I'm here again now, finally, though I'm sorry." The unexpected grace: how the vegan brother pays for the entire meal, for even though our family is known to be generous, still the act can be surprising, and surprisingly touching.
Thank You, please, forgive me, wow, amen.
Sunday 3
I drive to church wearing the red dress. I debated over it, back and forth in front of my closet and the mirror, because red is such a "Stop, look at me!" kind of color, and am I really that kind of person? In the end, it seemed too lovely to not wear it, and besides, I'm going back to my church for the first time in nearly two years, and am going back for good. My official return. If ever there is a time to catch people's eyes, I suppose it is now.
In my head I wrote the "Sunday - 2" passage for the first time, speaking aloud to the quiet car. I have missed driving. It's your own personal space to fill with music, words, or silence, all while going somewhere and seeing the landscape rush past. A map and a full tank of gas and one can go just about anywhere, anywhere at all. It's a freedom I'd missed.
At the same time, I wondered while I had been so exhausted each night that week, even growing more so, it had seemed. I was away from the city of elevation 9,350 feet, so surely I should be sleeping like a rock at this low altitude? I would go to bed early, falling asleep right away, only to wake up still tired. It didn't make sense. Until the penny dropped on that drive to church, and I realized that I hadn't factored in the elements of excitedly reconnecting with people, studiously looking for a job, and even doing things such as driving again after so much time; all good things I was happy about, but which left me more drained than I had realized. Yet my body had realized, so here I was a week later, finally trying to listen.
At church, I sat with friends and sang worship songs in my native tongue. When the lights dimmed, tears of contentment flowed from my eyes. To my late regret, I had never found a church in Quito which was entirely mine. I had attended the church I was asked and expected to go to and had left it at that. Now, I was back in the church I had chosen, the one I had seen through ups and downs and had stuck with, even fought for, out of conviction and faith.
A friend to my left asked, "How are you? Are you okay?" and I nodded. I meant it.
The painting of the blue door is still encased in bubble wrap in a suitcase, waiting for the right time to be unwrapped and hung on a wall. It will remind me of Ecuador, and more than that, it will remind me now of that Sunday morning of poetry and also of the two which followed. Of an all-night flight to meet the yellow rising sun, an airport surprise, and of yellow eggs at breakfast with favorite people. Of a red dress which grew wrinkled from hugs, and of early morning reflections. A handful of Sundays, collected and saved. Blue, yellow, red.
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